It had been years since you’d last seen him. Not since that final fight, not since the day you walked out of the Baxter Building and didn’t look back. You’d said things you didn’t mean. He’d meant things he never said out loud.

You and Johnny had been all heat and chaos. Soulmates, if soulmates could be reckless — if they could burn each other alive just trying to stay close.

You’d loved him more than you wanted to. But Johnny was a woman on fire’s worst temptation — charming, bright, impossible to pin down. He always promised forever, but came home with someone else’s perfume on his jacket. You weren’t built to stay where you weren’t chosen.

So you disappeared. No calls. No messages. Just a sudden, complete silence.

And two weeks later, standing in a fluorescent-lit bathroom holding a plastic stick in your trembling hands, you realized why everything had felt wrong on your last night with him.

You were already carrying a piece of him.

While Johnny was off saving lives, waving to cameras, soaking in the attention like sunlight — you were curled over a toilet. You were reading parenting books at midnight. You were learning lullabies and rubbing stretch marks with oils someone on the internet swore by. While he was the Human Torch, lighting up the sky in ways you used to adore, you were becoming a mother.

It wasn’t that you wanted to keep it from him.

You wanted him to be ready. But Johnny never stayed still long enough to ask the questions that mattered. He never stopped long enough to see what was right in front of him.

So you stayed gone. Not out of malice. But out of fear — for your child, for your own heart, for the ache that never really stopped hurting where he used to be.

The fire had already gutted the top three floors when Johnny broke through the smoke. He swept room by room like second nature, flames curling harmlessly along his skin. In one corner of the scorched hallway, he found her — a little girl curled in a ball, clutching a stuffed bear, coughing but alive.

“Hey, hey, I got you,” he soothed, scooping her up into his arms. “You’re okay now.”

She blinked up at him with big, bright eyes. Something about them caught him off guard — familiar, even in the chaos. But there wasn’t time to think. Sirens were already blaring outside.

After the medics cleared her for smoke inhalation, she wriggled out of the blanket they’d given her and ran into the arms of the woman sprinting across the barricade.

You.

Johnny’s world tipped.

You dropped to your knees and wrapped your arms around the child, whispering her name like a prayer — and Johnny stood frozen ten feet away, the air suddenly heavier than any smoke.

You didn’t even look at him at first.

You just pulled your child behind you instinctively, protective and guarded in the same way you used to be when someone got too close.

When your eyes finally met his, something unreadable passed between you. Shock. Guilt. Regret.

Johnny managed a hoarse, “You have a kid?”

Your jaw tightened. “Yeah.”

There was a long pause. His gaze flicked between you and the girl behind your legs. His voice cracked, just slightly.

“Is she…?”

“No,” you said quickly — too quickly.

That one word hit him harder than any villain’s punch. Johnny gave a short breath of disbelief, forcing a laugh that didn’t reach his eyes.

“Huh. Wow. I didn’t even know you were with someone.”